Posted on 12/31/2016 10:39:59 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, has revolutionized energy production in the United States and cornered OPEC. That cartel is currently attempting to restrict oil production and raise prices, but it faces the reality that American frackers can rapidly expand output. It’s a nightmare if you are a corrupt petro-dictator of any stripe, communist to jihadist.
Now the never-ending quest for new technologies has yielded a potentially revolutionary replacement or substitute for fracking: microwaving shale to extract oil and gas. James Watkins reports in Ozy.com:
As strange as it sounds, producers are experimenting with ways to zap previously unextractable oil resources with microwaves, which has the potential to kick-start an even bigger energy revolution than fracking — and appease environmentalists while they’re at it. This is potentially “a whole shift in the paradigm,” says Peter Kearl, co-founder and CTO of Qmast, a Colorado-based company pioneering the use of the microwave tech. Some marquee names are betting on the play: Oil giants BP and ConocoPhillips are pouring resources into developing similar extraction techniques, which can be far less water- and energy-intensive than fracking.
If producers can find a way to microwave oil shales in the Green River Formation, which sprawls across Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, the nation’s recoverable reserves could soar and energy independence could become more than an election slogan. Even with existing methods — strip-mining the shale and then cooking it, or injecting steam to cook the rock underground (hydraulic fracturing is useless here) — the formation contains enough oil to last the U.S. 165 years at current rates of consumption. Microwave extraction could goose those numbers even higher. After all, there are more than 4 trillion (with a “t”) barrels of oil in the Green River Formation....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I don’t think they have a poorhouse. They’ll just have to go sleep with the camels.
We needed the Brits, they needed us.
We sided with the Soviets to win as well.
It was a close thing.
How so?
And what about the microwaves that escape from the ground and the microwaves in our gasoline? Pretty dangerous, if you ask me. Catalytically cracked microwaves are particularly dangerous and nothing to laugh at.
It’s all a matter of lowering crude viscosity to enhance flow. Imagine what it can do in Venezuela with its tar-like crude.
Why drive them? Tell the goat f**kers to get on their camels and get lost!
Peak Oil gets pushed back another hundred years.
More like 400 to 600. And in that timespan we’ll develop technologies unimagined now. Plus, I believe that oil is abiotic.
I can’t wait to hear the fits the enviro-luddites will have over this.
If it makes money they hate it. Unless it’s phones or computers.
Let me tell you about Ahab the Arab
The sheik of the burning sand
He had emeralds and rubies just drippin’ off ‘a him
And a ring on every finger of his hand
He wore a big ol’ turban wrapped around his head
And a scimitar by his side
And, every evenin’, about midnight
He’d jump on his camel named Clyde, and ride
No. That will rather, infuriate the enviros exponentially. Any energy production is anathema. If they were rational about desiring safety and minimizing pollution they would be pushing thorium nuclear reactors but they are even more hysterical about them than about the reactors we have because they are safe and non polluting.
Generating the power for microwaves seems like a net negative, unless they have really cheap power.
Depends on how much electricity is needed versus how much oil is extracted.
” and appease environmentalists while they’re at it.”
LOL. That will never happen. They are against any and all forms of energy that are cost-effective and practical. They will make up reasons to oppose any new way to extract fossil fuels.
Don’t like it. It would kill the offshore drilling industry, and take a large part of our Merchant Marine with it.
Shades of Atlas Shrugged.
Earthworms live close to the surface and they need air to survive. This technology will be used deep down. I don’t see a problem.
Indeed. They will find SOMETHING that the microwaves disturb - bird migration, mating habits of wild animals (maybe even humans :-) ). ANYTHING to stop America from advancing the welfare of its people.
“..energy revolution than fracking — and appease environmentalists while they’re at it....”
Since the goal of Environmentalism is control over your life, this energy revolution will not appease the environmentalists.
Just my opinion but the only reason the middle eastern wing of opec is in existence is so they can kick back to western elites.
A money laundering scheme at best set up by the elites.
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